


Long Weekend

by neversaydie



Series: cock it and pull it [28]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Camping, Disabled Character, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Seizures, Vacation, consequences of the void, hint of gender questioning ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 00:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: They set off early, Sammy and Emily dozing in the back of the car as their caffeine fuelled boyfriends chat up front. The sun is just starting to creep towards its peak as they pull up to the spot on the other side of Sweetzer Forest, where Ben used to hike when he visited his grandparents as a kid. It's an easy trail, fairly flat, and it shouldn't be too hard to get their gear to the clearing they intend to spend the long weekend camping in.Well, at least two members of their party are contributing to the whole setting up camp thing. The others are mainly texting or, in Sammy's case, complaining."I'm just not really the outdoorsy type.""He means he's too gay for camping," Jack walks past them with a pile of tent poles over his shoulder, effortlessly lifting the metal with an ease Sammy has always envied… just not enough to drag himself to the gym over.[in which the gang go camping, silliness ensues and things don't quite go to plan... but sometimes they work out anyway.]





	Long Weekend

They set off early, Sammy and Emily dozing in the back of the car as their caffeine fuelled boyfriends chat up front - Ben driving while Jack sits with his arm resting on the edge of the open window, revelling in the cool air flowing over his skin. The sun is just starting to creep towards its peak as they pull up to the spot on the other side of Sweetzer Forest, where Ben used to hike when he visited his grandparents as a kid. It's an easy trail, fairly flat, and it shouldn't be too hard to get their gear to the clearing they intend to spend the long weekend camping in.

Well, at least two members of their party are contributing to the whole setting up camp thing. The others are mainly texting or, in Sammy's case, complaining.

"I'm just not really the outdoorsy type."

"He means he's too gay for camping," Jack walks past them with a pile of tent poles over his shoulder, effortlessly lifting the metal with an ease Sammy has always envied… just not enough to drag himself to the gym over. He has Jack for the heavy lifting, after all. "Y'know for all your closet shit, you'd think you'd have the decency to be the butch one in this relationship."

"That's gender essentialist of you," Sammy sniffs, earning himself a near punch in the arm that he manages to avoid _without_ having done any exercise, thank you very much.

"I don't know if butch is a gender," Emily muses, sitting on a tree stump and midway through composing an email to request a new smoke alarm for the library, since Doyle Bevans broke their previous one with whatever he was smoking in the accessible toilets last Thursday. "I mean, Ben is the butch one in our relationship and I wouldn't describe him as masculine."

"You don't think Ben's masculine?" Sammy shoots her a mildly curious look, already starting to rub his eyes against the tree pollen. He'll have to take his contacts out sooner rather than later, but he's not quite prepared to give up on vanity yet.

"I mean in terms of… gender is a spectrum," she waves her hand vaguely, half distracted, and then looks up from her phone like she realises she's said too much when Sammy quirks an eyebrow. "Binary isn't always default."

Sammy watches Ben and Jack setting up camp - laying out the tents for future construction and bantering while they decide where to make a fire, both stripped down to undershirts and happily sweating in the late summer heat (Ben is wearing jeans with sparkly studs across the pockets, for some reason) - and wonders what exactly they're obscurely not saying here.

"D'you mean-"

"We already have a very poor history of outing here, I- it's not like there's anything to out him about, but…" Emily pushes her glasses up her nose, email forgotten in the face of this accidentally delicate situation. Sammy gets the feeling he's stumbled onto something that's not meant for the light of day yet. "Questioning stuff is still private… I really shouldn't have-"

"I never heard a word," holding a hand up just slightly, not enough that it'll grab Ben or Jack's attention, Sammy calls time on the conversation and Emily's shoulders drop in relief under her (Ben's?) button-up (is there really a difference these days?). "Just... if anything did change, it wouldn't matter to me. In case he needs to know that."

"Thanks," Emily nods, face still twisted with guilt over absentmindedly mentioning something Ben might not have wanted to draw attention to yet, if ever. "I kind of assumed he'd talk to you about this stuff at some point, it's not like there's a big queer community around here."

"I think Ron or Archie would be a better resource than me. And hey, he's already way ahead of me in terms of understanding how gay works on the internet, he'll be fine," Sammy pulls a weak smile, slightly concerned about his friend but aware that Ben has his shit handled and is fully willing to ask Sammy if he does need something.

"I thought he gave you a crash course on forums? I mean, I know email is beyond you, but…"

"The amount of sass I get from you young people. I'm gonna end up like Herschel one day and it's not gonna be my fault," he shakes his head at Emily's relieved smirk, before reluctantly wandering over to offer his services to the construction team as the tallest member of their little party.

Not just because he wants to get a better vantage point to watch Jack doing Manly Things. Not at all.

He spends most of the afternoon holding tent poles where he's directed to and not commenting on Ben's inability to follow instructions… or Jack's inability to give them. It gets a lot easier after Emily reveals her impressive stash of pot, and Jack gets a gleam in his eye which suggests his trip to the void has left him long overdue for a smoke or few.

Sammy briefly considers whether there should be at least one responsible adult left standing… until Jack pulls him into a kiss and shotguns smoke into his mouth, which scuppers that plan somewhat. He could probably do with shaking a little of his dad friend image, anyway.

"That was our first kiss! It was Halloween and you didn't know how to inhale!" Jack insists later, as the afternoon draws to a close in a slow, giggly haze in the dying sun. He, Ben, and Emily have also dug into the cooler of beers, while Sammy is content to stick with one form of intoxication at a time.

"It wasn't our first kiss," Sammy shakes his head, voice tight with smoke as he tries to hand the dying end of the joint to Emily without burning her fingers. "If you're too drunk to stand then it doesn't count."

"We made out on a bed, Stevens. It counts," Jack gestures expansively with his bottle, narrowly avoiding smacking Ben in the face where he's bent over building the fire. "Kids, if trying to shotgun smoke turns into making out, it counts? Right?"

"Please don't call them kids," Sammy looks up at the patch of clear sky above them with an exaggerated groan, just to make Jack giggle. "It makes me feel like I'm the bad influence from an after-school special."

"I mean," Ben straightens up with a grin, which has Sammy happily bracing himself for whatever mockery is about to occur. "Before I met you I was a law-abiding, town-loving-"

"It was _one_ iconoclastic fistfight."

"On a stage!"

"In the long run I suppose you did end up-"

"Guys," Jack cuts Emily off shakily, humour evaporated. The empty bottle slips from his fingers and lands on the grass with a dull clank as he blinks heavily, and Sammy's heart sinks to the floor. "I feel weird."

"Oh, shit," Ben is the closest and steadies Jack when he checks out suddenly, grabbing his shoulder and awkwardly holding him up on the log he'd now fall off without support. His eyes are open but glazed, and he's nothing but dead weight now. "Little help?"

"God _dammit_ ," Sammy quickly comes to their aid, helping to sit Jack down in front of the log and propping him up against it to be as comfortable as possible. "I hope that wasn't the weed. He'll be pissed if he can't smoke anymore."

It's not usually his first response to joke about this stuff, especially when it comes to Jack's health, but at this point Sammy has to laugh or he'll cry. It's been _weeks_ since his boyfriend's last seizure, and they were tentatively beginning to let themselves hope that this might be the end of it, that the latest combination of drugs or simply time out of the void were enough to have fixed him.

Apparently, once again, they couldn't catch a fucking break.

"There's always edibles," Ben quips uncomfortably, and Sammy snorts out a weak laugh. He appreciates the effort.

"What time is it?" he asks, gently closing Jack's eyes for him so he doesn't end up sore and dried out when he comes around. It's a strangely intimate thing to do in front of other people, even if they have very little boundaries with their friends by now, and he avoids looking up as he ensures Jack is as settled as he can be.

"Five thirty," Emily is already making a note in her phone, and Sammy's chest aches a little to know that his friends care so much about Jack - that they're already familiar with all this stuff. "Fifteen minutes is still the cut-off before we have to worry, right?"

Considering the usual time limit of a 'normal' seizure being considered dangerous is anywhere from thirty seconds to three minutes, Jack's doctors are operating solely on evidence of what he's previously come out of unharmed at this point. Since there's no natural cause for his condition and it was sparked by a supernatural void nobody understands… that's about all they can do.

"Yeah. He hasn't gone longer than five lately, but who fucking knows," Sammy sits back down heavily, eyeing the cooler but quickly rejecting the idea of drinking. Jack's going to be disoriented when he comes around, he needs to keep his head relatively clear. "Sorry, guys. I know this isn't-"

"Dude, don't apologise," Ben shakes his head quickly, cutting Sammy off before he can be sorry for something that isn't anyone's fault. "Shit happens, we knew it was a possibility."

"It's just..." Sammy scrubs a hand across his eyes, jostling his sore contacts as the gesture totally fails to help him get it together like he'd hoped. He still has to forcibly remind himself that it's okay to share this stuff, not just bottle it up, and sometimes he manages it - with effort. "We'd started to... We thought they'd stopped. Maybe"

"Like for good?" Ben blinks in the rapidly-dimming twilight, exchanging an unsubtle glance with Emily as he realises why this is such a blow compared to all the other absences they've witnessed. "Maybe they will, man."

"They've already improved so much, Sammy," Emily chimes in, always sensitive to the defeated look on her friend's face.

Sammy shrugs, picking at the grass near his feet and wishing he didn't feel so goddamn helpless in the face of something hurting the man he loves. Again.

"I… I need him to get better," he confesses quietly, vulnerable in a way he'd never dreamed he could be five years ago. "If I'd just done something and gotten him back sooner, maybe he-"

"This isn't your fault," Emily insists, tossing the box of matches to Ben so he can start the fire before they get cold. It's warm during the day here, but the temperature drops rapidly overnight and they weren't exactly planning for one of their party to be totally unconscious by now.

"If I'd-"

"Don't start, dude. I _will_ suplex you," Ben grumbles, fumbling with the matches until a sudden voice makes him drop them in surprise.

"Yeah, stop beating yourself up. Jesus Christ," Jack startles them all, and Sammy looks up to see him exactly where they left him - propped up against the log - but now with his eyes screwed shut like he's got a hell of a headache. His voice is a little slurred, but other than that this is one of the better ways he's emerged from an absence. "S'going on?"

"You checked out. Not for long," immediately forgetting all his self-consciousness (Jack tends to have that effect), Sammy sits on the grass next to Jack and lets his boyfriend clumsily shuffle his way to having his head on Sammy's chest. "You're okay, promise. We're camping in the woods with Ben and Emily, remember?"

He immediately regrets his choice of words when Jack starts at the mention of the woods, trying to jerk away from him violently. Sammy's reflexes for dealing with him coming out of an absence have got pretty good over the last few months, so he gets an arm tightly around Jack's elbows, holding him down before he can even begin to get himself upright. If he lets go now then he'll run, and getting lost in the woods in the dark isn't going to help any of their collective trauma.

"Hey, hey," he keeps his chin back from experience as Jack tries to fight, ignoring Ben and Emily's alarmed looks as best he can. The one time Jack came out of a seizure around them without Sammy there he'd knocked Ben out cold, and Sammy supposes the restraint looks more violent than it is… but it's better than alternative. "Jack, it's me. You're safe. It's not those woods, I swear."

"I don't wanna go back in the dark," he's only vaguely coherent, but he starts calming down as soon as he starts to register that it really is Sammy holding him. That, more than anything else, convinces Sammy that they'll be okay - even after all the shit they've been through - as long as they're in it together.

Despite the fact they're being _really great_ about pretending not to pay attention to the very private scene, Ben resumes lighting the fire at Jack's slurred plea. Sammy could kiss him.

"You won't, baby. I promise. You're right here with us," he breathes out when Jack stills, finally relaxing, and actually manages something resembling a smile when Ben shoots him a relieved look over the fledgling flames. It helps calm Jack to bring him up to speed, so Sammy keeps talking quietly while things settle down. "We're camping with Ben and Emily, remember? We drove up here this morning, and made a camp and smoked too much pot, and-"

"Shit," Jack sounds more like himself, cracking open one eye and squinting in the steadily growing firelight to find his friends. "Aw fuck, guys. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Emily is a little pale, always uncomfortably reminded of her own post-abduction issues when Jack gets like this, and Sammy can't help but admire her strength - again - as she finds a smile for him anyway.

"Don't worry about it, dude," Ben steps in to take focus, gingerly patting him on his ankle where it's ended up stretched out near him, and it's hard not to be proud of the way he's grown into someone so sensitive to these nuances. "You want some water?"

"I want a beer," Jack groans, lightly slapping Sammy's forearm until his boyfriend releases him and helps him sit up, gingerly. "That better not have been the pot. I did _not_ come back for a smoke free world."

Sammy chokes on a laugh, not insignificantly hysterical, and Jack finds his hand in the shadows to squeeze it tightly. Ben hands him a beer and he doesn't object when Sammy steals it to take several thirsty gulps before handing it back mostly unscathed. Jack figures he's earned them.

"So," Sammy clears his throat when Jack rests his head on his shoulder, pretty much back in himself but needing a minute to collect all the broken pieces and make sure they still fit in the same jigsaw puzzle. "While you were out we decided shotgunning doesn't count, by the way."

"Cowards," Jack mutters, closing his eyes when the tension breaks as Ben and Emily - finally - laugh.

It's not the ideal way to start off a vacation, but when did they ever do anything normal anyway?


End file.
